The "Contextual Contact" in Grammar Microteachings in Teaching English as a Foreign Language: A Teacher Training Perspective

Sarigöz, Iskender Hakki

Educational Research and Reviews, v10 n10 p1377-1383 May 2015

The grammar microteachings carried out by trainees in teacher education is a critical issue due to the fact that the teaching of grammar has always been a controversial issue throughout the foreign language teaching (FLT) acculturation. There is always some negative reaction to isolated teaching of grammar in communicative language teaching fashion. Traditional and mechanical ways of teaching grammar are always popular in all geographies. On the contrary, there are teachers who stay away from deliberate teaching of grammar. Such conflicts cause difficulties in the perception of the methodology of grammar teaching. The reflections of problems of this sort must be argued in English language teaching (ELT) methodology courses conducted in teacher training colleges. Facilitating the learners contact with the context which contains the new grammar input in a premeditated fashion may become a challenging task in the microteachings carried out in pre-service teacher education. The trainees who are doing practicum may observe grammar based teaching and this causes confusion from the standpoint of communicative language teaching. This study attempts to discuss the dynamics, construction and implementation of grammar teaching from the perspective of ELT teacher trainees. The strengths and weaknesses affecting the accomplishment of microteaching tasks are analyzed from methodological perspective and suggestions that may assist the trainees in order to activate their energy competently in the application stage are provided. The components of a grammar microteaching argued in the sections below symbolize the main parts that universally exist in the idiosyncratic order of lesson planning argued by communicative language teaching trend.